


Ghost

by Wardove



Series: Spider Stories [9]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, I'm on a mission to hug every spider, I'm still terrible about tagging sorry, Some closure again, but for who?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:53:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21729349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wardove/pseuds/Wardove
Summary: He’s falling through the rainbow mosaic of the open multiverse.  No sound, no sense of wind or gravity, no frame of reference.  Just the knowledge that he isfalling, with no way to stop.No breath, no heartbeat.  He wants to panic, he should be panicking, but panicking involves hyperventilating and heart racing,he doesn’t have those.  Just the shimmering weave of reality, glittering in colors his mind can barely comprehend.
Relationships: Miles Morales & Peter Parker
Series: Spider Stories [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1325264
Comments: 6
Kudos: 124





	Ghost

He’s falling through the rainbow mosaic of the open multiverse. No sound, no sense of wind or gravity, no frame of reference. Just the knowledge that he is _falling_ , with no way to stop. 

No breath, no heartbeat. He wants to panic, he should be panicking, but panicking involves hyperventilating and heart racing, _he doesn’t have those_. Just the shimmering weave of reality, glittering in colors his mind can barely comprehend. A splitting, agonizing headache if he’d had a head to ache, instead left drowning in his own mind, thoughts barely solid enough to hold him together as he drowns in the vastness of everywhere and everywhen at once.

He wants to scream, but he has no throat to scream with. It feels like he’s been falling hours. Just a minute. Forever. Can’t remember how he got here. He saw it unbridled when the collider was imploding, sucking all the shattered fragments of the other verses back into itself. He doesn’t remember falling in. Doesn’t remember if something else happened. Just… falling. There was an after, right? Had it happened yet? Was it happening?

And then warmth, like a hug without arms, and the fear dissipates as the multiverse wavers and melts away, the sharp spread of the threads connecting the worlds blurring into something softer, hazier. 

“You’re alright kiddo, I’ve got you, you’re safe.” 

A voice almost unfamiliar, almost forgotten. The warmth coalesces into two solid arms around his quivering shoulders, and suddenly he can feel his body again, feel his heart thundering in his chest and his blood rushing through his ears and his eyes, and there’s a warm wetness on his cheeks as he gasps for air with the lungs he can suddenly feel again. 

There’s a hand stroking through his hair, and that same voice from just above his head, the words rumbling in the chest he’s tucked against. 

Time passes, he thinks. There’s no way to tell how much, but through the whole of it the arm continues to hold him close, the fingers card through his curls and scratch at his scalp, and the voice rumbles gentle reassurances. 

Finally, he’s calm, and the memory of the great web is dulling, already fading away. Carefully he pulls away from the chest, and the arm releases him and shifts to his elbow, interlocking forearms. The hand stays tangled in his hair. 

Above him is a face he never got to see in person, not fully. He can see both eyes now, soft and blue and crinkled with the warm smile gracing the man’s face. 

“You’re-” He can’t bring himself to say it, to name him. The man nods anyway, wriggling his fingers across his hair. 

“You did good kiddo. So, so good.” 

Miles stares up at the man, ignoring the solid, heavy tears that are falling faster now, just taking in the face, the hair, the expression, warm and open and familiar. The expression he’s seen on his dad’s face, on his mom’s, on Beter’s. Pride. 

Slowly, he presses himself into Peter Parker’s chest once more, letting his eyes fall closed as he relishes the two arms wrapping around him once more, holding him tight. 

“This isn’t real, is it?” He murmurs, muffling his voice in Peter’s shirt. The responding hum vibrates through both of them, and Miles shudders in response to the sensation. 

“You _are_ dreaming.” The former hero informs him. “Didn’t look like a very good dream either.” 

For perhaps a split second the soft blurry colors around them sharpen, and for that moment the sensation of his body falls away, expanding into the endless colors, out out out in every direction, mind falling and straining under under under it’s all too much too much too much-

Breath on his ear, and a soft, rumbling hum echoing, tingling, grounding. 

The multiverse blurs away again and he’s back in Peter’s arms, being rocked from side to side slowly. 

“Yeah.” He gasps out. “Not a good dream at all.” 

“I wish you hadn’t had to see it.” Peter murmurs, pausing in his comforting hum. “I wish I’d been there to teach you, been there to support you. I wish…” But he trails off, not finishing that thought. He presses his chin into the crown of Miles’s head and begins humming again. 

“I’m glad.” Miles tells him, after another stretch of unknown time. Peter’s humming quiets but doesn't stop, and the boy takes a moment to collect his thoughts. He tries to focus on his words, to order them, but everything seemed to waver, Peter’s iron hug shimmering into the same blur as the blanketed space around them, and Miles lets his focus run away like water instead. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.” He offered, letting the words tumble like tiny pebbles caught loose in the wayward flood of his thoughts. “Everyone says it wasn’t my fault. Part of me knows that too, but… but part of me feels like there was _something_ I could have done to save you.” 

The fingers were back in his hair. 

“Maybe there was a universe where we both survived that night. Maybe even a few of them.” Peter agrees, tone odd. “But how many verses would we have both died? If you hadn’t gotten out, no-one would have known what was happening until it was too late. If you’d died and I survived, I still would have been too injured, and Fisk was too familiar with my fighting styles for me to take him like you did at the end. Besides that- you have your whole life ahead of you now. And that- I’m okay with that. Just take care of Mary Jane and Aunt May for me, okay?” 

“Of course man, they’re family now.” 

There’s something at the edge of his hearing. Something he can barely hear- sharp and loud and annoying. Repetitive. Peter’s solid hug wavers again, and he huffs out a laugh, holding Miles away at arm’s length. 

“Think it’s time for you to wake up.” 

Miles doesn’t respond to that- ignoring the familiar twist of the web of color around them to focus instead on the familiar-but-not face, the blonde hair and the lack of age-lines. But still, so familiar. The dream wavers, like he’s underwater. The noise outside his hearing seems louder, more intrusive. 

“I wish this was real.” He muttered softly to himself, before closing his eyes and letting it slip away. When he opened them, he was staring at the bottom of Ganke’s bed, and his hand flew out to silence the alarm clock. 

As he got up and stretched, Miles could almost imagine a voice, at the edge of hearing, the faintest whisper, quieter than a thought. It makes him smile ever so slightly, before he moves on into the day, tucking the memory of it away.

_Did I say it wasn’t?_

**Author's Note:**

> A thought I had in October, that I finally got to spin out in November, and polish in December. 
> 
> I was hoping to keep a schedule of posting something every Friday until I'd gotten all my NaNo ramblings out, but uh. Things happen in threes? Or in some cases, _sevens_. But hey, silver lining, always more time to write and edit lol. 
> 
> I'll be back again at the end of the week. Some of the things I wrote I probably won't attach to the Spider Stories series, simply because they overlap a lot and they'd fit better as standalones, even though my-verse Miles is running around in them lol.


End file.
